Court Upholds PlayStation Rival

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Court Upholds PlayStation Rival

Sony has lost a key appeal in its lawsuit against Connectix, a computer products maker the entertainment giant accused of tinkering with Sony PlayStation game console software.

In a ruling handed down Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Connectix's right to use a process known as reverse engineering to develop a product for playing PlayStation games on PCs.

A lawyer for Connectix said the ruling set a new legal precedent for reverse engineering – the process of taking apart and analyzing products to develop new applications with the technology.

"I think it's very important for everyone who makes emulation products because they all need to be able [to] reverse engineer hardware products," said William S. Coats III, the attorney representing Connectix. He said Thursday's decision was an indication that "courts will not be micro-managing engineers."

Sony sued Connectix last year for developing and selling a software program called Virtual Game Station. Connectix's product lets users play Sony games on ordinary computers so that they don't have to buy Sony's proprietary game console.

Sony claimed Connectix had infringed on its copyright by using the software program that operates PlayStation in the Virtual Game Station. The lawsuit also claimed Connectix had tarnished the PlayStation trademark by selling its rival product.

In its defense, Connectix acknowledged copying Sony's software but said its methods weren't against the law. Although some elements of software are protected by copyright law, Connectix argued it should still be allowed to develop a product with a similar function.

Mark Lemley, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, compared the situation to a cola maker picking apart the ingredients in a rival's drink to create a formula that tastes the same. Although a brand may be protected, a company should be allowed to analyze the components of a rival's product, he said.

Lemley, who submitted a brief in support of Connectix, said he also disagreed with Sony's contention that Connectix's business unfairly cut into the market for PlayStation consoles and games.

"Another way to look at it is [that Sony may have] tremendously expanded the market for Sony games," he said. "It may be that lots more people will buy their games if they're available not just on a PlayStation box but on any computer."

At the time of the ruling, Connectix had introduced a Virtual Game Station for Macintosh computers, but it had not yet completed a version designed for Windows.

In its ruling, the appeals court reversed an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court for Northern California. The lower court had issued a preliminary injunction preventing Connectix from selling its Virtual Game Station or using Sony software code to develop similar products.

Sony officials said they were disappointed by Thursday's ruling and were analyzing the decision. The company plans to press ahead with the case and expects it to go to trial as early as June.

Connectix executives said they plan to restart shipments of Virtual Game Station for Macintosh immediately and will begin selling a Windows version soon.